UPDATED - Orders of the Days: So, how about Friday? Would that work for you, Speaker Milliken? (Was Tick. Tick. Tick.)

The all-party negotiation team is scheduled to meet this morning to make a final attempt to settle the matter. If no deal is reached, they'll head back to the Chamber, and Milliken will be asked to either grant an extension, if they feel they're on the verge of consensus or, if the discussion ended on a less congenial note, for leave to introduce the appropriate motion -- which, in this case, would be one that would find the government in contempt. Since he has already concluded that this is, in fact, a prima facie breach of privilege, permission to do so would almost certainly be given, at which point it would be up to the House to decide how to proceed. 

UPDATE: Following this morning's meeting, sources say that the parties are going to ask the Speaker to extend the deadline to Friday at 1:30. Will he allow it? I'll keep you posted!  

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Meanwhile, in another part of the parliamentary universe, reluctant witness Sebastien Togneri heads back to Ethics.

A bit of background: When he first appeared before the committee last week -- not voluntarily, mind you, but under summons -- Togneri raised the ire of the opposition by refusing -- politely, but firmly -- to breach what he insisted was an order from the information commissioner that forbade him from discussing the details of the incident that landed him on the committee's radar: specifically, what he freely admitted was his "stupid" decision to order civil servants to "unrelease" material that was about to be handed over to a Canadian Press reporter. 

The chair, however, felt otherwise, and informed the witness -- and his lawyer -- that the commissioner herself had assured him that the confidentiality order was not intended to prevent him from testifying before a parliamentary committee, which prompted Conservative members to accuse said chair -- Liberal MP Paul Szabo -- of engaging in improper, ex-parte chat with the commissioner, which, they insisted, was tantamount to interfering with an Officer of Parliament while she was in the midst of a formal investigation. 

That particular claim found its way back to the House later that day, via members' statement from Ethics committee irregular Chris Warkentin, which, in turn, led Szabo to rise on a question of privilege yesterday, during which he categorically denied the allegation, and read into the official record a letter from the commissioner that seemed to corroborate both his assertion that it was she who called him, and not the other way around, and that no such alleged interference took place. She also confirmed that the order warning Togneri not to discuss his interview with her office did not apply to committee proceedings, and offered to go before Ethics to discuss the matter further should members require additional clarification. 

(Unfortunately, due to unrelated liveblogging duties, I missed out on all the post-QP fireworks, but you can read the full debate here -- and an enormous thank you goes out to all the commenters who tipped me off to its existence, and my apologies for not being able to cover it in realtime.)

Oh, and the second witness listed for today? Dimitri Soudas, the prime minister's director of communications, who is supposed to take the stand after Togneri is released, although depending on how cooperative he is this time around, that could eat up a good chunk of the time, which means Soudas could be preempted. 

In any case, it's going to be quite a morning. Sorry, Procedure and House Affairs, but it looks like I'm going to have to miss out on another day of white hot professor-on-professor prorogation-related action.